Mistakes And Their Undoing
by tineryn
Summary: On their way home from a mission, the newly reunited Team 7-minus-one encounters two people they don't expect, who are in way over their heads. WIP. Kakashi, Iruka, Genma, Naruto, Sakura
1. Chapter 1

_**Title: **Mistakes And Their Undoing_

_**Rating: **T_

_**Summary: **On their way home from a mission, the newly reunited team-seven-minus-one encounters two people they do not expect, who are in way over their heads. Gift-fic for bakabokken's birthday!  
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_**Notes:** Happy birthday, Rinja! I know that you like whumpage, so hopefully this fic will deliver._

_I should note a few things here: most important, there may or may not be slash. I haven't decided if I want to include it or not, so that will depend mostly on how the characters progress and whether it will contribute anything to the story. If the rating goes up (which it may, but I doubt), it will not be because of that. This also does not fit neatly into the canon timeline, but I don't think that it is a severe enough change to classify it as AU. Finally, this is a work in progress, but updates should be fairly regular. Guh, I ramble too much. I promise, in future updates, I won't have this many notes. On the bright side, you get two chapters at once, since, this being a gift fic, I wanted to wait for permission to post.  
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After all the events of Kakashi's long life, he would never have denied that good ideas could spring accidentally from really, really bad ones. Of course, he would also never have denied that "good" was an entirely relative term. What would in one case be considered catastrophically awful, depending on the events directly preceding it, the same event might instead be a stroke of pure, heaven-sent good luck. In this case, it was a little bit of both.

When he accepted the mission, he did so under noted protest: it was long, it was boring, and it had considerably low risk for direct combat. On the other hand, despite the unbearable monotony of courier missions, no matter how crucial they were, the fact that the reunited fragments of team seven-minus-one got to get their feet wet without risking decapitation for something so elementary as rusty teamwork was due only to Godaime's benevolence, and for that, Kakashi was eternally grateful. As for the tedium that went with it, running a scroll to the Raikage himself was at least crucial enough to keep Naruto's ambitions quiet. After all, no matter how rocky the history between Konohagakure and Kumogakure, it was nothing compared to the _future_ that loomed between Konoha and Oto, and this was a fact that all three of them were, unfortunately, rather personally acquainted with.

Unfortunately, this still amounted to little more than an extended camping trip, and Kakashi spent most of it bored on a level he hadn't experienced in years. He had finished the _Icha Icha_ installment Naruto had given him four times on this trip alone (three of which while waiting around in Kumo for a reply), and he had started looking for reasons to put the book away. He first realized how ridiculous it had gotten when, shortly after crossing the border to Fire Country, a rabbit had broken a stick and he immediately spun around, shuriken in hand and hitai-ate up, full battle stance. It wasn't so much his oversensitivity or good reflexes that were the problem, though; it was Sakura, saying to him in a voice that just oozed with eye-rolling, "Kakashi-sensei, do you actually _want_ us to get attacked by Sound nin?" Then Naruto had said something to the effect of 'hell yes, bring 'em all on, I'll beat the whole village myself, dattebayo,' and then Kakashi really wished he had never quit Anbu, because then he wouldn't have to put up with this shit.

The one time they did get attacked, it was by a shoddily composed, week-old "gang" of civilian fourteen-year-olds, while walking down the main street of a town they had only stopped in due to mission parameters. The attack itself mainly consisted of a rock tossed at Naruto's head (which he caught in his bare hand without turning around, displaying a level of situational awareness that shouldn't have shocked Kakashi, but nevertheless did), a few menacing glares accompanied by cracking knuckles, and one vaguely threatening pick-up line intended for Sakura. In the children's defense, Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura were out of uniform, with no headbands or visible weapons, but even Naruto hadn't seen their challenge worth acknowledging. And then their contact, the whole reason they were even there, hadn't even shown up.

The whole thing was summed up rather succinctly by Naruto one evening, about half a day's walk over the Fire border. They were all sitting around a large campfire--stupidly large, Kakashi had mused at the time, given their position within miles of more than one unfriendly border--the scents of fish, small game and scavenged nuts and berries wafting tantalizingly--dangerously--through the air. Kakashi, for the record, had considered these risks and summarily dismissed them. Honestly, if their dinner really drew out enemy sound or cloud nin, which was unlikely, at least it would break up the monotony.

Naruto eventually broke the silence that blanketed the trio like the blackness outside their ring of firelight: "Man, this mission _seriously_ sucks."

And then, as if the fates had just been waiting for that cue, things got interesting.

"Give me that!"

Suddenly, the shot glass vanished from his hand. A reasonable portion of Kakashi's mind was suitably impressed, but the rest of him was annoyed. "Maa, but Sakura, I think that's a little--" The glass rejoined the thick wooden bar table with a loud clunk. Her expression didn't wince. "Uh, wow."

Naruto's face was ashen. "_Sakura-chan,_ you..." He waved his hands vaguely. "You really are a mini old lady!" The glass broke, and Naruto's eyes widened. She raised a fist, looking murderous. "The woman you spend all your time with! Come on, you know I didn't mean you were old!"

Kakashi caught her wrist in a firm grip. "Maa, Sakura, I hate to get in the way of your retribution, but you're causing a scene." Both teens stopped moving. All around the bar, eyes flicked in their direction. "Although, on the bright side, it will be easier for them to find us now."

Sakura settled back into her seat. "At least you didn't get... _skeeved on_ by _children._" An exaggerated shudder ran through her, and she made a face.

Kakashi snickered behind his mask, but otherwise remained impassive. "Technically, they are your age." As he spoke, he raised his hand and hailed a waitress, giving his best plastic smile. She winked and began making her way over. "But if you like older men, I can talk to Gai for you."

Sakura put visible effort into quashing her reaction, and ground out, "You _know_ that's not what I meant." She fingered the glass, eyeing the bar pensively.

"One is enough, I think," Kakashi said with one eyebrow raised.

She sagged slightly. "Yeah, I know." Sakura let go of the glass.

After a beat, Naruto perked up. "Hey, hey, if it's okay for Sakura to..." He grinned conspiratorially.

"No." The response came twofold. Naruto didn't seem overly surprised, but was annoyed nevertheless, and his expression soured.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, whatever." He waved a wrist dismissively. "I need to be on my game anyway, even if this mission totally blows. Hey, by the way, what are we--" Naruto stopped abruptly as the waitress arrived.

"Ah," Kakashi affected a blasé tone. "Some edamame, please. And jasmine tea." The girl bowed deferentially, but couldn't hide her grin or her eyes. Beside him, his companions rolled their eyes.

"Anyway..." Conversation resumed after she walked away. "Hey, so who are we supposed to be meeting here, anyway? Is it important?"

Sakura huffed. "Obviously it's important; it's for the village, isn't it?"

Kakashi shifted his weight, drawing his book out of a pocket. "Actually," he admitted, "I have no idea who we're meeting." He flipped through the book, stopping at the glossy pictures in the middle, and studied them absently.

"What do you mean they didn't tell you?" He glanced at her from the corner of his eye; Sakura had turned to face him with her eyebrows scrunched.

"Well," he drew the syllable out as he considered her question. "I have an idea, but it's not like we really need to know anyway. I'm pretty recognizable, so as long as our contact knows to meet us here, he'll just give us what we need and we'll go. And it'll probably be someone we know, or know by sight." He looked around the bar impatiently. "But we have been here quite a while."

Naruto scowled. "Well, whoever it is, he'd better hurry up. I wanna go home and get a real mission." Their tea and edamame arrived. He bit aggressively into a soybean.

Sakura stood and leaned over, serving the tea delicately. "I seem to remember someone was happy about this mission, excited to meet the Raikage..."

"Yeah, until i realized how boring Lightning Village was. And how annoying civilians can be."

"My parents are civilians!"

"But _they_ live in Konoha." He said this as if it were a very obvious qualitative difference. "The point is that our _contact_ is lazier than Shikamaru."

Sakura ignored him. "Kakashi-sensei, what if something happened? Should we go after them?"

"Mm..." Kakashi scrunched his nose. "I had considered the option, but we don't exactly have anything to go on, and we could just make things worse."

Here, Naruto chimed in. "Worse? What do you mean?"

"Well, if, for example, it's some sort of covert op, we could blow their cover. There are plenty of things that could prevent someone from meeting a contact, and not all of them are life and death."

Naruto tapped his chin with a forefinger. "Hmm, I think I get it now. So how long do we wait, then?"

Kakashi turned and glanced out the window. The sun, which had been high in the sky when they first arrived, was beginning to grow large and pink, and the shadows cast by the surrounding buildings had blackened. "We've been here too long. If we hang around too much longer, we'll draw attention. Finish that, and then we leave."

Despite what he said, however, simply leaving without a word left a bad taste in his mouth. If the leaf shinobi they were supposed to meet was involved in what he suspected, and didn't make their rendezvous, they probably really did need help. But Kakashi's misgivings did not change the fact that their team was ill suited for that kind of task, especially having come prepared for such a low key mission as the one they were currently running. With a sigh, Kakashi resigned himself to the fact that there was nothing he could do. If their comrade didn't arrive before their edamame ran out, they would leave for Konoha.


	2. Chapter 2

Shadows crept across the ground like a rolling fog, blanketing the small city and making the surroundings nearly indistinguishable. The sky was purple, the only hint left of daylight other than the dying orange line along the horizon. Shiranui Genma's fists clenched, fingernails biting into calloused skin as he leaped across the empty streets. The parameters had said by sundown, damn it, did this still count? But then, the parameters had said a lot of things, unfortunately not all of which had come true.

The black was insidious, and it taunted him as surely as it blinded him. While the barest hints of sun still colored the sky, in the world around him, evening had undeniably given way to night, and as quickly as the last red slipped from the sky, so too did what little hope he had of meeting his contact. Genma cursed under his breath and pushed harder ahead. Maybe the team wasn't on a sensitive schedule. Maybe they had lingered on beyond the allotted time. Maybe they were just finishing up a leisurely dinner after so many nights of rations, skipping meals, and camping out? Maybe if he ran faster, he could catch them now, just as they left.

Maybe--he barely dared to hope--he was meeting Kakashi, and he was late!

_"Maybe,"_ said a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Iruka, _"you just fucked us over."_ Only years of operating in silence stifled the groan that surged from his diaphragm. In the interest of anonymity, among other small changes, his senbon was missing from his lips. The absence suddenly felt hollow, and Genma barely caught his fingers itching the holster snapped to his hip.

As he tore through the streets of the town, skidding nearly blind along hairpin turns, kicking up dust, bracing himself against stone walls and the dirt road, a large part of him couldn't help but wonder why he even bothered. Deep down, despite the thousands of absurd scenarios his anxiety could call forth in a millisecond, he knew that he wasn't going to make it in time. Hell, if he were the other shinobi, he certainly wouldn't have stayed on this long. Still, he lengthened his strides and pushed the pace harder. His shirt had come untucked in his haste, and at some point, his hair had escaped from the band that had restrained it. Both billowed behind him like the fading streaks of an after-image.

He wouldn't have let it bother him--he rarely let anything bother him--but right now, he needed this rendezvous more than he needed anything else, and _fuck_ did he need a cigarette. He could almost taste the relief on his tongue, could see it in his mind's eye: rushing into the bar and skidding to a stop in front of a table occupied by two or three of his comrades. The idea that it probably wouldn't happen that way sank like a stone in his gut.

The sky was getting darker, but the area around him was growing lighter, and soon he could make out the familiar scent of wood smoke and the faint rumble of loud music bound by thick walls. He was getting closer. Soon he would see vehicles, and light pouring from electric signs and street lamps, and crowds of people relaxing and socializing after a long work day. The faint scents of cooking stalls and street vendors floated down the streets, mingling with the odor of garbage and too many people crowding a small area.

By the time indistinguishable chatter reached his ears, Genma had started to see other people, and was forced to slow down to a light jog, both for safety and to draw less attention. Now, the doors he passed were open, and dark windows filled with human silhouettes lit with bulbs yellowed tobacco smoke and grime. The city was respectable enough, but it wasn't clean, and it wasn't wealthy, and signs of its age and poor means showed most in small details. The people here were by no means threadbare--they were just well-off enough to know what they were missing--but, even from his short visit, scouting it a few days before, and his mad bolt through this evening, Genma new that it was only for their lack of hidden village that the small country was not a threat. People of small means rarely befriended the wealthy, after all, unless extortion or bribery was involved. This was a place where the influence of massive power shrouded in the poverty of neighboring Rice Country could easily stoke ambitions of the worst kind.

Genma had reached the square, and consciously slowed, shoving his hands in his pockets and slouching carelessly. The people around him weren't all intoxicated, after all, and it would be easy to draw unwanted attention, if he didn't watch himself. The crowd around him mostly donned collared, button down shirts, most of which had come untucked and unbuttoned. They grouped in small cliques, edging past other groups without exchanging more than essential pleasantries. Iruka's suggestion to travel incognito was a good one, Genma realized as he looked down at his own dark sweater and jeans. He had bristled at the idea at first, and had refused to leave without at least his utility belt, but in retrospect saw the idea's logic. After all, a shinobi would be out of place in a civilian country, even one surrounded by as many ninja countries as this one.

At least in a crowd like this, it was easy to slip by unnoticed, especially since he had a destination in mind. Genma could see the place up ahead. The White Hare was unremarkable inside and out. He and Iruka had stopped on their way to Sound, both to rest and to familiarize themselves with the place for when they had to find it later. The dark wood of the outside had been stained once, and had weathered in the years since. The sign was neon, but somewhat old, and it whined and flickered slightly. Indoors, the floor, flooring was beaten, honey-colored wood, and the counters and lower walls were decorated with matching bead board. The wrought iron lighting, dim and yellowed with smoke and age, played in the colors and the shiny finish, creating a warm, tired atmosphere.

Now that he could see it, Genma couldn't justify taking any longer to get there, and he shoved impatiently past slow-moving bystanders, sparing only briefest seconds to pacify them with a friendly grin and an apology. It was just that there were so _many_ of them, and they all seemed to have materialized in the seconds it took him to register the bar across the wide square. He sighed in frustration and rolled his eyes, biting down the urge to mutter under his breath. The sky was thoroughly dark now, stars twinkling in a clear, black night, and the only illumination came from lit windows and street lamps.

"There is no way I'm here on time," he said to himself, breaking his silence unintentionally. The pleading note in his voice must have registered, despite his low volume, because a few people turned around and glanced at him with curious, pitying gazes, and froze, trapped between the compulsion to help and the need to flee. Genma grit his teeth, his jaw lined with iron, and he spat words at them, "It's _none_ of your _business_," and shoved rudely past. He didn't turn to see whether they accepted the shove with wide, questioning eyes, or irritated disdain. He didn't look at anybody else, avoid knocking shoulders or apologize when he did. He didn't try to look friendly, and he certainly didn't look at anyone with his uncharacteristically burning eyes.

He got to the door even faster than he wanted to, despite his haste, and when he burst through it, yellowed light, smoky air, and din of conversation and music assaulted his senses, he knew right away that the curling feeling like his intestines had turned to snakes had been justified. He didn't have to freeze and stare for long moments, pressing his lips together, clenching his fists, slumping his shoulders and choking down the ever-growing lump in his throat, to know the back corner table would be empty. Because it was dark outside, sundown had long passed, and his Konoha compatriots hadn't waited.

There was a reason he didn't normally take missions with certain friends, and damn it, this was it. Not for the first time in his life, he wished the room were empty, or that he had a pillow to bury his face and scream his frustration until his throat bled. However, that would draw attention, and that would only make matters worse. So, instead of the tantrum that his muscles desperately itched to throw, Genma walked right past the corner table and up to the counter, where he sat heavily, slamming one tight fist down on the countertop, and ordered a drink.


	3. Chapter 3

The night outside Iruka's tiny window was peculiar in its clarity. As he sat staring out, leaning back in the sturdy wooden chair and propping his feet on the side of the tiny desk, he couldn't help but examine the air closely, expecting to see billows of summer fog or a gathering storm, but instead, in contrast to the hazy humidity that clung to the air and his skin, the stars were bright and clear, and the wide moon lit up the streets, making the shadows a stark contrast against the ground. Iruka didn't know whether it was the heavy moisture in the air that had built up over the past few days, ready to spill over into thunder and showers, or the uncertainty of his current situation that caused him to expect inclement weather.

Genma should be traveling back now, he thought, and as much as he wanted to picture his friend sprinting across the flat landscape trailed by three other people, bright with hope and the promise of a safe return home, Iruka could only picture him alone. Ever since the bottom had fallen out from under them, the despair of a failed mission had hung over him like the clouds he expected to hang in the sky, weighing him down with personal failure and anticipation of the consequences that failure would surely bring.

All of this was compounded by the fact that neither he nor Genma had any idea what they were supposed to do. It didn't matter how much training you received, how much experience you had with covert missions, how much information you had gotten before leaving, or how many refresher courses you had attended. Nothing really ever prepared you for what to do when you were _found out_. Because, really, what could you do? Especially in _their_ situation, in which the accusations had been made vaguely, loaded with threats and questions, but containing no real confirmation of anything.

It was infuriatingly clever of the Sound nin, Iruka had thought to himself earlier that evening, when the panic of being left alone, exposed, in an enemy village, was still fresh in his chest. A few well-placed comments, and both sides knew the Konoha operation had been revealed, but not enough information had been given away that Iruka and Genma could make a decisive movement. If they made a break for it and got home safely, the lack of definite information or proof their cover had been blown would make it seem as if they had abandoned their mission voluntarily. But if they stayed, they would effectively sign their lives--and valuable information--away. Or would they? The oto-nin had never technically made a threat, and however miniscule, there _was_ still a chance that idle comments had been exactly what they were at face value, and that any perception of danger was nothing but insecurity and oversensitivity on part of Genma and Iruka.

With no other workable options, the duo had decided the evening before that Genma should continue according to mission parameters as if nothing were wrong. He would leave that evening, traveling at a civlilian's pace along main roads until he was far enough from the Sound village and reasonably sure nobody had followed him. Then he would cover his tracks, leave the road, and fly at a breakneck speed across the landscape to meet their contact at The White Hare by sundown. If their comrades felt that danger was imminent enough, they would rush back with Genma and assist in extracting them safely. If not, Genma would hurry back alone, and the two of them would reevaluate their options.

Genma had hated the idea, wracked with guilt for leaving Iruka behind and anxiety that, if he had also been compromised, instead of following him, his would-be pursuers would instead use the opportunity to come after Iruka for the copious information his security clearance gave him access to. But there was nothing else they could do. If they had elected to stay, Genma would have had to travel to meet them anyway.

"It's really no different," Iruka had reassured him as he prepared to leave, "and it's not as if we didn't know we'd have to split up from the get-go. There's no reason to agonize over the whole thing."

Well, that wasn't entirely true, Iruka said silently to himself, shifting his weight awkwardly in the hard straight-backed chair. He had tried to keep up appearances, to go out like he normally would, socialize over lunch by a popular stall, shop, talk to people... but as the day wore on, it became more and more difficult to pretend he didn't know they were probably watching. The itch on the back of his neck and the unease in his head had compounded with every exchanged glance and with every jostled shoulder as he moved through throngs of people. He had given up on the idea of dinner, and had remained in the room, chewing idly on a ration bar, glancing over his shoulder, staring out the window, tensing every time he heard footsteps and even more every time he didn't.

The chair was really uncomfortable. Maybe, he thought, pressing one hand against the cool glass as he shifted weight yet again, if he concentrated on that, on how unforgiving the design was, how he could feel his bones digging uncomfortably into the wood, how precarious his balance was as he leaned back on two chair legs, on how stiff his joints felt having sat there too long in such a bad position... Maybe if he concentrated on that, he would be able to ignore the unnatural way the shadows fell across the street, suggesting human presence with perfect line of sight into his window. Maybe he would be able to ignore the tiny lights, glinting in the darkness like they would off the retinas of some sort of animal. Or maybe he could stop thinking about the fact that the two rooms adjacent to his had suddenly been booked, both at the same time, right on either side of Iruka even though the whole inn had been, with a few exceptions, basically empty.

But Iruka was kidding himself. If his and Genma had truly been uncovered, there was no way he would have made it to their rendezvous point on time. What self respecting hidden village would just allow an enemy nin to leave the village? If Genma wasn't dead or wounded already, he had missed their allies, and if that were the case, their chances of escaping Sound were slim to none.

For that matter, given how obvious his watchers had become after Genma left the village, his friend's chances of returning to find Iruka at all were slipping away into nothing. Iruka took a deep breath and tried to think like a teacher. What would he tell his class? In a situation like this, obvious eyes can mean one of two things: they're trying to scare you--to smoke you out, or it no longer matters whether you see them or not. Knowing this, the decision to flee was made a lot easier, though the idea of fleeing a mission without any real information sat like a stone in his gut.

But Iruka wasn't sure he could do it. Escape would be difficult with both him and Genma, but alone, with all of Oto watching? Iruka wouldn't stand a chance. All the same, time was slipping away. Sound was gearing up to make a decisive move against him, and Iruka wasn't sure he had the time to wait for help.

No. He had to wait. Fleeing now, with all these watchers, in the dead of night with no provocation, was as good as signing his life away. Besides which, if Genma returned to find Iruka gone without a trace, he would assume Iruka had been captured or killed in his absence, and there was no way to ensure they'd meet on the road to prevent this. It was better, safer, to wait for Genma to return. Maybe he was just being pessimistic. Maybe he did make it on time. Maybe everything would be fine.


End file.
